Dear Kannan, calculations have shown that this colletion is vry feasible but needs to be 100% reliable. Cost will be around 3 to 4 cents per person per day. In suitable situation there can be other means of transport. Such toilets can flush after they are well filled even with gravity pipes to an underground tank.
The animation is great I like it. The logistics of emptying the toilet once a week could be an issue when it come to services for the poor. Should there be better ways of collection and disposal, will make the terra preta toilet more effective. Just a quick thought, will send you some comments soon.
In recent discussion there was a remark that we should apply the lactofermented excreta onto land that needs humus feeding and thar is not cultivated with food crops right thereafter. It does make a lot of sense to selsct small plots of land that receive the lactofermented excreta alongside with enough woodchips or woody waste (not leaves) plus some charcoal dust in appropriate amounts in a laminary in-situ composting. Excess water can be absorbed by the soil. It will require land with some biological acitivity left, else inocculation with living soil will be needed.
Living on the west coast of the U.S., I came across this animation after seeing your other more technical videos. It is very well done. It seems like you are keeping a secret, with the number of views that you have at this time. Perhaps you should file this animation under a few other titles with more common keywords, like, "Composting toilet system", or "The new alchemy, turning crap into topsoil" to increase UA-cam exposure of your great ideas. Will you be selling toilets as part of your business model? I know that here in the U.S. (and Canada, Australia, and New Zealand), there is much interest in "tiny homes". You might consider them as an important market for your toilets. Currently, most of the tiny homes that don't have a connection to traditional sewage, are using composting toilets, i.e. Nature's Head toilets. These tiny home owners might be a good test market, or test group, because of both their need and a willingness to handle their own crap. I am not clear if you are purely doing research for the public good, or if you are also looking to sell toilets and Terra Preta sanitation systems. One organization that I know about that has a global reach into rural areas is: echonet.org. Their researchers probably would be very interested in your work.
Dear Kristin, Thank you for these hints, will add keywords.... This is not commercial and theses container toilets need a pilot project where there is an order for above 5000 units. Else there will not be a company that will invest in molds and marketing. Container toilets can work for tiny houses, but the promer management and treatment of the excreta must be assured. Most plots of land are too small to do this on you own land - a person can fertilize around 400 m² / 4000 square feet and we suggest to exclude vegetables for a few years, too.
Well done for this presentation. But to me as a farmer, the ten year rule is very puzzling. Excreta (from livestock, wild animals, birds and soil dwelling animals) is deposited on food growing areas all over the world, every day. Well functioning soil biota are well able to take care of it and the only case where transmission of pathogens could be a problem would be with uncooked produce, grown at soil level, consumed without washing or peeling.
Dear Chris, Thanks for the feedback! It would make sense that societies only bring chemicals into nature that soil- and water biota as well as animals and humans can handle. Unfortunately, this is rather the exception that the rule. We worked extensively on urine that contains certain mass market pharmaceuticals. A lot of them is not at all degradeable with biological methods, others metabolize into who knows what mostly unresearched substances. Many mainstream scientists say "no problem, extremely low concentrations". This statement is absolutely unscientific and not true, nature works a lot with ultra low concentration that can be highly efficient in living systems. Therefore I suggest a rather far reaching precautionary principle. Most others in sanitation see this differently. And yes, in a world with hundreds of pharmaceutical residues in many tap waters even in Germany this seems overdone. On the other hand we would not need most of all those chemicals pushed into the market by global companies with far too much power.
Have you thought of growing fish using the nutrients in sewage ? This is simpler than growing crops on land. The sewage can be released into a lagoon or pond and fish can be grown in this lagoon / pond. Human sewage contains nutrients, N and P, but does not contain micro-nutrients - Iron, Zinc, etc. We have a solution to add the micro-nutrients required and thus grow Diatom Algae, diatoms are the natural food for fish.
Dear Bhaskar, fish is grown in many aqua cultures or extended waste stabilisation ponds. However, they will only use a fraction of the nutrients, the rest should go to irrigation/fertilisation. Human sewage does cobntain a lot of micro-nutrients, but many people get food from land that is deficient in zinc, boron and others. Besides ill people this will result in shortages in the wastewater. Personally I prefer non-food-land-utilisation of human wastewater. Kind regards Ralf
Ralf Otterpohl Fish yield in aquaculture ponds is about 5 tons per hectare per 6 months. On par with grain yields. Human wastewater is just undigested food, what problem is there in using it to grow fish ? People just have to stop flushing industrial goods down toilets. Kolkata with a population of about 20 million, does not have a singe sewage treatment plant, all the sewage is transported into the East Kolkata Wetlands and fish grown in about 250 aquaculture, spread over 12,500 hectares ponds.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Kolkata_Wetlands If Diatoms are grown in the ponds much less land would be required.
Yes, I agree. More than the affordability, it is the reliability and the intention of the authorities and the service provider to provide uninterrupted service to the poor. It is well know fact that the poor pays more than the afforadales to get services and to meet the basic needs.
As far as I understand, it’s an anaerobic process as the waste is collected as a liquid. Isn’t a dry/ aerobic process the better solution? Are there any solutions on the market which separate urine as well as the cleaning water from the feces effectively?
The right choice for the given situation is key. I have designed and built Urine Diverting Dry Toilts in different aprts of the world. Can be a great system in very rural settings, sufficient space and people who either care for the remains (urine is the headache) and have an application for fertilizer (non food in my opinion) or organize service where REAL utilization will happen. That will require about 200 to 400 m² (x10 roughly makes square feet?) per person. For more densely populated areas, persi-urban and urban even into downtown lactic acid fermentation in container toilets are far better. We have recently proven the fesability for multy-storey through an in-depth mater thesis.
watching this while eating was a bad idea
Pondering the fate of what we eat is quite appropriate, but may be better done on the loo. 😉
Dear Kannan, calculations have shown that this colletion is vry feasible but needs to be 100% reliable. Cost will be around 3 to 4 cents per person per day. In suitable situation there can be other means of transport. Such toilets can flush after they are well filled even with gravity pipes to an underground tank.
The animation is great I like it. The logistics of emptying the toilet once a week could be an issue when it come to services for the poor. Should there be better ways of collection and disposal, will make the terra preta toilet more effective. Just a quick thought, will send you some comments soon.
Please help us with your creative feedbacks!
In recent discussion there was a remark that we should apply the lactofermented excreta onto land that needs humus feeding and thar is not cultivated with food crops right thereafter. It does make a lot of sense to selsct small plots of land that receive the lactofermented excreta alongside with enough woodchips or woody waste (not leaves) plus some charcoal dust in appropriate amounts in a laminary in-situ composting. Excess water can be absorbed by the soil. It will require land with some biological acitivity left, else inocculation with living soil will be needed.
Living on the west coast of the U.S., I came across this animation after seeing your other more technical videos. It is very well done. It seems like you are keeping a secret, with the number of views that you have at this time. Perhaps you should file this animation under a few other titles with more common keywords, like, "Composting toilet system", or "The new alchemy, turning crap into topsoil" to increase UA-cam exposure of your great ideas. Will you be selling toilets as part of your business model? I know that here in the U.S. (and Canada, Australia, and New Zealand), there is much interest in "tiny homes". You might consider them as an important market for your toilets. Currently, most of the tiny homes that don't have a connection to traditional sewage, are using composting toilets, i.e. Nature's Head toilets. These tiny home owners might be a good test market, or test group, because of both their need and a willingness to handle their own crap. I am not clear if you are purely doing research for the public good, or if you are also looking to sell toilets and Terra Preta sanitation systems. One organization that I know about that has a global reach into rural areas is: echonet.org. Their researchers probably would be very interested in your work.
Dear Kristin, Thank you for these hints, will add keywords.... This is not commercial and theses container toilets need a pilot project where there is an order for above 5000 units. Else there will not be a company that will invest in molds and marketing. Container toilets can work for tiny houses, but the promer management and treatment of the excreta must be assured. Most plots of land are too small to do this on you own land - a person can fertilize around 400 m² / 4000 square feet and we suggest to exclude vegetables for a few years, too.
So these toilets did they go into production? Thanks
Well done for this presentation. But to me as a farmer, the ten year rule is very puzzling. Excreta (from livestock, wild animals, birds and soil dwelling animals) is deposited on food growing areas all over the world, every day. Well functioning soil biota are well able to take care of it and the only case where transmission of pathogens could be a problem would be with uncooked produce, grown at soil level, consumed without washing or peeling.
Dear Chris,
Thanks for the feedback! It would make sense that societies only bring chemicals into nature that soil- and water biota as well as animals and humans can handle. Unfortunately, this is rather the exception that the rule. We worked extensively on urine that contains certain mass market pharmaceuticals. A lot of them is not at all degradeable with biological methods, others metabolize into who knows what mostly unresearched substances. Many mainstream scientists say "no problem, extremely low concentrations". This statement is absolutely unscientific and not true, nature works a lot with ultra low concentration that can be highly efficient in living systems. Therefore I suggest a rather far reaching precautionary principle. Most others in sanitation see this differently. And yes, in a world with hundreds of pharmaceutical residues in many tap waters even in Germany this seems overdone. On the other hand we would not need most of all those chemicals pushed into the market by global companies with far too much power.
Have you thought of growing fish using the nutrients in sewage ?
This is simpler than growing crops on land.
The sewage can be released into a lagoon or pond and fish can be grown in this lagoon / pond.
Human sewage contains nutrients, N and P, but does not contain micro-nutrients - Iron, Zinc, etc. We have a solution to add the micro-nutrients required and thus grow Diatom Algae, diatoms are the natural food for fish.
Dear Bhaskar,
fish is grown in many aqua cultures or extended waste stabilisation ponds. However, they will only use a fraction of the nutrients, the rest should go to irrigation/fertilisation.
Human sewage does cobntain a lot of micro-nutrients, but many people get food from land that is deficient in zinc, boron and others. Besides ill people this will result in shortages in the wastewater.
Personally I prefer non-food-land-utilisation of human wastewater.
Kind regards
Ralf
Ralf Otterpohl
Fish yield in aquaculture ponds is about 5 tons per hectare per 6 months.
On par with grain yields.
Human wastewater is just undigested food, what problem is there in using it to grow fish ?
People just have to stop flushing industrial goods down toilets.
Kolkata with a population of about 20 million, does not have a singe sewage treatment plant, all the sewage is transported into the East Kolkata Wetlands and fish grown in about 250 aquaculture, spread over 12,500 hectares ponds.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Kolkata_Wetlands
If Diatoms are grown in the ponds much less land would be required.
Yes, I agree. More than the affordability, it is the reliability and the intention of the authorities and the service provider to provide uninterrupted service to the poor. It is well know fact that the poor pays more than the afforadales to get services and to meet the basic needs.
As far as I understand, it’s an anaerobic process as the waste is collected as a liquid.
Isn’t a dry/ aerobic process the better solution? Are there any solutions on the market which separate urine as well as the cleaning water from the feces effectively?
The right choice for the given situation is key. I have designed and built Urine Diverting Dry Toilts in different aprts of the world. Can be a great system in very rural settings, sufficient space and people who either care for the remains (urine is the headache) and have an application for fertilizer (non food in my opinion) or organize service where REAL utilization will happen. That will require about 200 to 400 m² (x10 roughly makes square feet?) per person.
For more densely populated areas, persi-urban and urban even into downtown lactic acid fermentation in container toilets are far better. We have recently proven the fesability for multy-storey through an in-depth mater thesis.
Great Shit 😃👍🏽🙏🏽
and unsinkable, too!
modi ji prime minister of india should invest in this systems